The Gravity of Love
by The Gramarye
Summary: Ch.2 up at last. A little bit of spying by Soujiro yields some surprising results; Kenshin and Kaoru's protectiveness of one another begins to cloud their relationship.
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: We all know that the Kenshin-gumi and all their creepy foes are the demented brainchildren of Nobuhiro Watsuki-sama. I'm not writing this for any profit; in fact, if I weren't so obsessed with writing stuff like this, I could go out and get a job, so I'm actually losing money in the process. :-) I do this strictly for my own satisfaction, and hopefully, yours as well. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If not ... chikushou, aku baka!  
  
That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent. Don't fault me for it. At least I'm trying.  
  
Happy reading!  
  
ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting. Use your head. If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine. Not that anyone cares but me.  
  
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 62; also through "Rurouni Soujiro" by yours truly, posted a LONG time ago on ff.net. Note to readers: if you already know what I'm talking about without having to go back and search for it, congratulations! You're officially a ff.net oldtimer. :-)  
*****  
THE GRAVITY OF LOVE  
  
PROLOGUE:  
SOMETHING MISSING  
  
The crescent moon was riding high above the clouds, though none of the few people awake in the city of Tokyo below could appreciate it. It was not raining yet, but the clouds were pregnant with storm, and the wind held the promise of watery whips in it. Stragglers on the streets of Tokyo were few and far between, and those that were there moved quickly, avoiding looking at the sky, as though they might accidentally breathe too hard and rupture the clouds.  
  
The Kamiya Dojo was still, save for the gentle sighs of the wind and of Yahiko snoring in his sleep. Not all of its occupants were asleep, however, despite the time being well after three in the morning. If any moonlight had been able to penetrate the clouds, it would have reflected off a single sharp pair of violet eyes gazingly fearlessly, though concernedly, into the night sky. Those eyes belonged to a slim red-haired figure sitting on the edge of the covered walkway outside his room, resting Indian-style and half leaning on a sheathed sword at his side. They were lost in thought.  
  
*How long ago now?* Kenshin wondered to himself. *Three months? Four months?* Time had a way of slipping away before he knew where it went, even after he had regained consciousness in Kyoto and returned to Tokyo. Summer was already getting late, and the first of the Autumn storms were beginning to make it known that they would be paying visits soon. It seemed like just last week, or like it had never happened at all. He might have dismissed it as a dream at times, if it weren't for the nagging pain in his ribs and chest, memories of the Guren Kaina and of using the Ama-Kakeru, Ryu-no-Hirameki three times without so much as a nap in between. He generally healed quickly, but the wounds he had suffered that day had drained him in almost every way it was possible for a man to be drained.  
  
A change in the air alerted him that something was different in the courtyard. He brought his eyes down from the sky, and saw a slender, familiar silhouette slipping off into the dark.   
  
***  
  
*It's going to rain again,* Kaoru sighed to herself as she forced herself out of bed. She sat cross-legged at the edge of her bedroll for several moments before rising fully to her feet, lulled into reverie by the gentle rush of the wind outside. There was not another sound in the house. Kaoru stretched idly as she roused herself, staring out the window at the overcast sky. It was an interesting perspective, because she was doing a straddle stretch and looking at the window between her legs and upside down, so it looked like she was staring down into a floor of clouds far below where she stood. She lost herself for another minute in her own personal world.  
  
*Focus, Kaoru!* she chided herself after a minute, shaking her head. For some reason, she had had a great deal of trouble keeping her mind in one place since they all returned from Kyoto. It could have been any number of reasons, actually. Kenshin's condition was constantly in and out of her awareness. There was also the simple fact that, aside from Kenshin's condition, it seemed that almost nothing had changed since they left for Kyoto so long ago. She had figured that everything would be different somehow; after all, they had saved the country. The problem was that almost no one knew about it. The government had completely covered up ShiShiO's death, even more so than they had his life. Life went on.  
  
No matter how she focused her mind, however, her thoughts always drifted back to the red-haired wanderer that now slept soundly once again down the hall. Before they had left Kyoto, he had claimed that he was fully healed, and he always managed to put on a fantastic show of it in front of her, but she somehow knew better. Without even consciously realizing it, she had formed a kind of empathic link with the wandering samurai. She knew that he was trying to be strong for her, to let her slide back into her life that she had neglected for so long during his convalescence, but it wasn't working at all. It was tearing her apart.  
  
She grabbed her bokken from its resting place against the wall of her bedroom and walked out into the gathering gloom. Unconcerned, and doing a much better job of holding her head upright under the oppressive clouds than most of those she passed, Kaoru headed immediately for the outskirts of Tokyo. There was a field just outside the city where she had always loved to play as a child, set high on an outcropping with a breathtaking view of the sunrise. Since she had come of age, if she could even be said to have done so, being still well shy of her twentieth birthday, she had also found that it made a fantastic place to come to train. It was quieter than the dojo, generally, and it was also safer from eyes that she didn't want watching her.  
  
She stopped just as she was about to exit the last row of trees at the edge of the field and looked back. There was something tugging at the edge of her awareness, but she couldn't lock her mind on it, nor could she see anything moving except a few nocturnal birds. After a moment, she shrugged and moved back out into the field.   
  
She had a particular place she liked to begin warming up, between two high boulders halfway to the center. The rocks stretched half again as high as she was, and had flat surfaces at their top. She had climbed them often as a child. As she matured as a student, and since returning from Kyoto, she had used them for training, timing herself to see how fast she could scale them. The whole field had been a playground for her, as well as a training center and a refuge.  
  
Slinging her bokken off her shoulder, she strode out to her favorite starting place between the boulders.  
  
***  
  
Kenshin stood silently several rows back into the trees, just close enough to the edge of the woods that he could see into the clearing. He kept low to the ground and stayed in the deepest patches of shadow he could, despite the darkness and the clouds. He didn't like shadowing Kaoru without her knowing, but the streets of Tokyo weren't all safe after dark, especially this long after dark, and his protective instincts were fierce. Once he had discovered that she was leaving the city, he had become even more apprehensive. It was unlike her to leave the city without telling him, much less at this time of night.  
  
Kaoru had slowed to a halt out in the field, adopting a fighting stance and bringing her bokken to the ready. Kenshin's eyes narrowed, then widened again. *Is she training?!* he thought to himself. *At three in the morning?!*  
  
*****  
  
CHAPTER 1:  
ARRIVAL  
  
Soujiro stood on the deck of the ship, watching the harbor of Tokyo in the distance slowly grow on the horizon. The rain that had clouded the sky for most of the day had abated, and the seagulls were out and about, trying to snag a few fish before dark. A brisk salt breeze ruffled the young samurai's clothing, carrying the scent of the distant city on it.  
  
A nearly imperceptible eddy in the breeze behind alerted him to a familiar presence. He turned just as the slender Korean teenager he had rescued from the Yakuza came alongside him, placing her hands on the railing. His smile compressed for just a fraction of a second. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted anyone, save perhaps ShiShiO and Yumi, but it still annoyed a tiny corner of his mind that he had such difficulty sensing her approach. He was much better at it than he had been when he had first met her at the Red House, when she had startled him completely, but she still usually managed to get within a few strides of him before he realized she was there. He didn't even think she did it intentionally. It was just the way she moved, and the way her mind instinctively restrained itself.  
  
"Konnichiwa, Soujiro-kun," she said, looking at him only briefly before turning her attention to the approaching shoreline.  
  
"Young-eun-chan."  
  
"Is that Tokyo?" Her voice betrayed her anticipation, even if the rest of her body was relaxed. She had never gotten to go more than a few miles from Ichibou for as long as she could remember, though she had been born in Korea before her parents had fled to Japan for some reason long since forgotten.  
  
"Hai," Soujiro replied. "We'll probably be there just before dark."  
  
She smiled. "I can't believe it. I never thought I'd even get to see Kyoto."  
  
"I can imagine," Soujiro replied absently, the image of a haggard child with a rice bale on his back flashing into his mind for a brief moment. Young-eun looked at him questioningly, but he didn't answer, and she let it pass after a moment. Soujiro was glad she never pressed him too hard about his past; he had told her more than he had told anyone else, during that one magical night when they had both dropped their barriers for each other, but he it was still too big a scar to be the subject of casual conversation.  
  
Uncomfortably, Young-eun changed the subject. "So ... where are we staying tonight?" she asked.  
  
"We'll find somewhere," Soujiro assured her. "I know a couple people with spare bedrooms that should be happy to put us up." Whether they were happy to or not was not Soujiro's concern; there were several people in the government who owed ShiShiO their livelihoods, and since almost no one knew that ShiShiO was dead, they'd be more than happy that room and board were all Soujiro intended to ask of them. ShiShiO had demanded much more costly things and risky acts from them in the past, in exchange for his silence about their secrets.  
  
"Someplace nice?"  
  
Soujiro only smiled at her in response. It was good enough for her, as she turned her attention fully back to the approaching shoreline.  
  
Sure enough, the ocean liner pulled up to the docks in Tokyo Harbor just as the sun was halfway behind the mountains to the west. Young-eun's excitement had been growing the whole time, and Soujiro wondered if she were going to wait for the gangplank or jump straight from the ship to the dock as soon as it came within range.  
  
In the end, she settled for the less dramatic approach, and filed off the ship with the rest of the passengers. They ducked out of the milling crowd on the dock quickly, as Soujiro had left the blacksmith's horse in Nagoya with arrangements for it to be returned to Ichibou if possible, and he and Young-eun were traveling with no more than they could carry.  
  
Young-eun was in no hurry to go much farther than the wharf, however. Just beyond the pier lay Tokyo's port market district. Her eyes were sparkling, and Soujiro realized that she had probably never seen anything of the kind for as long as she could remember.  
  
"Anou ... we should probably go ..." he began hesitantly. It was getting dark. Then, suddenly, he thought better of it. Events in Tokyo might have changed since he had last been here, and even more since the last time he had actually kept track of them; the last time he had been here, he had simply been spying on the Kamiya Dojo before he left to shadow Shinomori Aoshi.  
  
"Can you believe this place?" Young-eun asked in wonder, either not hearing him or pretending not to hear. Soujiro guessed that she really hadn't heard him; she really seemed to be interested in just about everything in sight, and trying to take in as much of it as possible before the light failed.  
  
"Young-eun-chan?" he said a little louder. This time, he got her attention.  
  
He continued, "Do you think you'll be all right by yourself for a while? I can go check and see if I can get us a place to stay by myself."  
  
Young-eun looked at him quizzically for a moment; they were hardly what anyone could call possessive of each other, but they had not been apart very often since he had rescued her. Then she patted the wakizashi that still hung by her side, signaling that she could still take care of herself, even if she was not half the fighter she had been when her inner darkness had taken over at Heron's Ward all those weeks ago now. "I'll be all right," she said. "Where do you want to meet up?"  
  
"There's a restaurant called the Seigyokukaze (1) at the north side of the harbor market, I thought it might be a good place to get a little dinner. It ought to be about that time when I get back."  
  
"Sounds great."  
  
"All right. I'll be there in an hour."  
  
There was an awkward silence, as neither one of them moved immediately; then, with another questioning look into Soujiro's eyes, Young-eun moved off into the crowd of evening shoppers. Soujiro watched her from behind until she vanished into the milling mass of people, disappearing into the crowd like a ghost. He was even able to sense her presence for a few moments after that; her excitement was getting the better of her, apparently, even more so than on the ship, though her movements still didn't betray it.  
  
When he could no longer make her out, Soujiro ghosted off into the crowd himself, in another direction.  
  
Once he cleared the crowds of the market district, Soujiro set off at a brisk pace towards the trendy Shibuya neighborhood, home to many of the political and cultural elite of the Japanese capital. The homes on either side gradually faded from the flimsy single-story residences that comprised most of the city, being replaced with more ostentatious and permanent structures, often behind guarded iron fences twice as high as Soujiro himself. Soujiro smiled mockingly at them, remembering one of the last times he had been to this neighborhood with his former mentor.  
  
*See these?* ShiShiO had said, tapping the bars of one of the fences. *What do they tell you?*  
  
Soujiro had looked at the fence, and shrugged.  
  
*Would you count on a fence to keep you safe?* ShiShiO had pressed.  
  
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered immediately.  
  
*Why not?*  
  
*I'm strong by myself,* Soujiro had answered.  
  
*Very good. But what about whoever is on the far side of this fence?*  
  
*They're weak?*  
  
ShiShiO had nodded, though he plainly did not mean that to be the end of the lesson. *There are exceptions,* he said. *However, as with snails, most of the time a hard outside hides only something soft and slow inside. And, as with snails, most of the predators that would feed on them have ways to break their shell. Would this fence keep you out, if you wanted to get in?*  
  
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered again.  
  
*Of course not,* ShiShiO had agreed. *So why build the fence?*  
  
*They think it will keep me out?* Soujiro had wondered.  
  
*Of course not!* ShiShiO had snapped. *These people are not completely stupid, even if they're complete cowards. If they thought the fence alone would do it, they wouldn't hire guards as well.*  
  
*Then why the fence?*  
  
ShiShiO had pointed to several of the peasants walking by some distance up the street. *See them?*  
  
*Of course,* Soujiro had answered.  
  
*Those poor people have no idea what we're capable of. We know it, and the people inside these fences know it. The rest of the people have no idea. Therefore, they assume that the fence is strong enough to keep people like us out. After all, who would build a fence for no reason?*  
  
*So they want to appear strong ... but not be strong?*  
  
*Oh, they want to be strong,* ShiShiO had answered contemptuously. *But they don't have the discipline for it, not anymore. They're not willing to make the sacrifices. However, they were stronger at one time--never truly strong, but stronger--when they brought down the dynasty. That is what people remember.*  
  
*So they assume that because people remember that they were strong, and they still look strong, that people will think they're strong?*  
  
ShiShiO had given him one of his most malicious and triumphant grins, one he normally reserved for when his apprentice had mastered a exceptionally difficult new fighting technique. *Always remember that, whenever you deal with these people,* he had said. *They care more about appearances than reality. The appearance of power is the only power they have left. Most of them will do absolutely anything to preserve it.*  
  
Soujiro returned from his woolgathering as he approached the gate of the very same high-fenced residence that he and ShiShiO had been on their way to visit that night almost four years previously. He realized that he probably looked foolish, a small child whose sword seemed almost out-of-place at his waist, knocking on the bars of a forbidding black iron grille almost three times his height. And yet, as ShiShiO had reminded him, to people living a lie, the truth was a deadly weapon. He was no more afraid of the gate than it was of him.  
  
Plodding footsteps soon echoed from within, and a watchman carrying a lantern on a pole emerged into view some distance back from the gate.  
  
"Who goes there?" a voice rang out.  
  
"Is Kotaru Takao in, please?" Soujiro called back.  
  
"Who the hell is this?"  
  
"The Tenken," Soujiro responded. "Please tell Mr. Kotaru that I'm here."  
  
"The what?!"  
  
"Please just tell him," Soujiro responded.  
  
The watchman had been approaching slowly during this time, and the light of the lantern now fell on Soujiro's face. Soujiro put on his most innocent, unthreatening expression.  
  
Eventually, the watchman made an incomprehensible mumble of assent, and turned back towards the house, signaling to two other guards that had emerged some distance behind him, close to where he himself had first come into view, that he had everything under control. The others made gestures of assent, and vanished from view again.  
  
Soujiro did not move until the man was halfway back to the mansion, and the radius of the lantern's light had long since left the gate. Then he grinned, backed up several steps, drove forward, and drove himself into the sky. He alighted atop the stone pillar that formed the left side of the gate, then hopped down lightly to the ground. It was a good twenty feet, but he had been landing from much higher distances on much rougher surfaces since before he turned nine.  
  
Even avoiding the lantern-light of the scattered patrolling guards and with the watchman having less than half the distance to cover that Soujiro did, the blue-clad assassin reached the mansion before the watchman. The most any of the other guards heard or saw of him was a breeze passing through the gardens on the front lawn.  
  
By the time the watchman was approaching the door of Kotaru's second-floor office, Soujiro was already positioned just outside the large, open window. There was more than enough shadow to conceal him; he had always wondered why people who hid from the eyes of the world often surrounded themselves with enough darkness so that whatever they were hiding from could get right on top of them without them seeing.  
  
Kotaru Takao was a heavyset man in his mid-forties, with a forehead that was beginning to show more than he might like. Soujiro supposed that he probably felt important with his posh office, mahogany furniture, expensive suit, and imported cigars, but Soujiro had never been overly impressed by them. His posture was confident and domineering at the moment, but Soujiro doubted that would last long.  
  
The sentry's knock sounded on the door.  
  
"What is it?" Kotaru's voice rang out.  
  
The guard opened the door, and took a step into the room. He looked nervous. Soujiro wrinkled his nose at the thought of the overdressed bureaucrat behind the desk making a guard nervous; guards were supposed to be fighters, and no self-respecting fighter should be afraid of a forty-something-year-old man armed with nothing but a swanky stogey, regardless of the size of the man's wallet.  
  
"Sir?" the guard asked uncertainly.  
  
"Come on, Gakusha, out with it!" Kotaru snapped.  
  
"There's a boy out front asking to see you. Doesn't look like a beggar, asked for you by name."  
  
Kotaru cast a scornful gaze at the guard. "I see ... did this boy say who he works for?"  
  
"No, sir ... called himself the Tenken, didn't say anything more than that."  
  
Soujiro always enjoyed watching the effect that name had on people. He had never been really careful about dropping his true name, even among the people who were only under ShiShiO's thumb, but his seldom-used alias always seemed to elicit a stronger reaction. The man's face lightened a shade, and he seemed to shrink by an inch. It was though someone had removed a support for his back. When he spoke, his voice was perceptibly quieter than it had been before. Overall, however, he took the news better than most of the people he had visited over the years as ShiShiO's messenger.  
  
"He did, did he?" Kotaru wondered aloud. "All right, I'll see him. I'll have someone else send for him, though. Return to your post."  
  
"Yes, sir," the guard said as he left.  
  
Kotaru waited a moment after the door closed, then stood up, facing away from the window. "Though I suppose that won't really be necessary," he said, conspicuously louder.  
  
"True enough," Soujiro answered, alighting on the windowsill, "but I thought it would be polite to let you know I was in the area."  
  
"Which wouldn't be important if you didn't want something from me," Kotaru sighed.  
  
"Aw, you figured it out," Soujiro replied innocently.  
  
"Hasn't he gotten rich enough off of me already?"  
  
Soujiro gave him an innocent look.  
  
"Oh, never mind," the man said at length, tapping the end of his cigar on the rim of the ashtray at one corner of his desk. "I know the drill. What do you need?"  
  
Soujiro's smile brightened. "Nothing much, really. I'm traveling with a friend, and we're trying to stay out of sight. I was hoping we could impose on your hospitality for a few nights ... and that no one else would need to find out about it."  
  
"That's it?"  
  
"Just two guest rooms, a bath, and a little fresh food."  
  
"I guess that's an offer I can't refuse."  
  
"Good guess."  
  
Kotaru shrugged resignedly. "So where is this friend of yours?" he asked after a moment.  
  
"She's around," Soujiro responded.  
  
The older man's eyes widened momentarily. "It's a girl?"  
  
Soujiro gave the man a puzzled look, innocently daring the man to keep asking questions. After another moment, Kotaru flicked another dash of ash off the end of his cigar, and made a noncommittal murmur. Then he straightened.  
  
"I'll have the Blue Rooms prepared for you. They haven't been used in a while, but it shouldn't take that long to get them in shape again. How long will it be before you need them?"  
  
"Oh ... three, maybe four hours."  
  
"And how long will you be staying?"  
  
Soujiro suddenly realized that he had never given any real thought to that question, and it had caught him off guard, even though it was a perfectly natural question to ask. He and Young-eun had never even really talked about it, it had just sort of been understood that they would stay until they felt like moving on. However, Soujiro was not about to say that; that was not ShiShiO's style. ShiShiO always had an agenda and a tight schedule.  
  
"A week. Maybe a little more." That ought to be at least enough time to find another place to stay, if staying longer were to become necessary, Soujiro realized, and it was better that Kotaru believed that the Tenken was only in town on a mission.  
  
"Very well."  
  
***  
  
Young-eun flitted through the market. She hated to call it that, but she was definitely flitting. It was not that she couldn't afford to buy anything, or that she had no interest in shopping. It was just that there was so much to see, and it was getting near the time when all the shops would close for the night, and she wanted to see as much as possible before they did. Everything here was more than she had ever seen in one place in Ichibou, save for the rare merchant's caravan that happened to be carrying finer wares than normal.  
  
One store carried spices and other foodstuffs all the way from India. Another carried jewelry and accessories from America. A merchant was attempting to sell tickets for a steamship cruise to Hawai'i. There were clothiers specializing in fabrics and styles from almost every country she had ever heard of. There were grocers hawking foods from all over Japan. There were several promising restaurants, with ethnic fares from all over Asia, and one or two serving Western cuisine as well.  
  
Eventually, she found herself drawn to one of the more opulent jewelers along the waterfront. She was certainly not alone in this; the store was crowded both inside and out, as such places went. There were still no more than a dozen or so men and women there, but she remembered that the only jeweler in Ichibou often saw fewer than that in an entire day, and even fewer who actually bought anything.  
  
Scanning the crowd as she entered, she realized that she probably looked highly out of place here in her sturdy brown peasant's kimono. Most of the other customers in here sported outfits that probably had cost at least twenty times what hers had, and some of the women were wearing imported finery that had probably cost several times that. The only other customer that was wearing anything else as simple as her was a slender girl near the back, wearing an unassuming beige do-gi.  
  
Young-eun's eyes passed by the girl for a moment, then snapped back, narrowing slightly. There was something about her that told Young-eun to take a closer look. Trying to act casual, she strolled towards the rear of the store.  
  
"Ohayo," Young-eun said as she drew alongside the girl.  
  
The girl turned, and Young-eun caught a brief, alert gleam in her eyes before they suddenly, much to Young-eun's surprise, became flushed with embarrassment. "Um, I'm fine, I don't really think I'm going to be buying anything," she said quickly.  
  
Young-eun was confused, and replied that she had no real intention of buying anything here either.  
  
"Oh, I thought ... that is ..."  
  
Young-eun suddenly realized that the girl had thought that she worked here, and it was her own turn to be embarrassed. *I've got to get some better clothes,* she thought to herself. *This isn't the wilderness anymore.* She quickly replied that she didn't work here at all and had just come in to look.  
  
It was the other girl's turn to look embarrassed. "Ah, gomennasai, I didn't mean ..."  
  
"It's OK," laughed Young-eun.  
  
"So are you just in here to look, too?"  
  
"I'm looking at everything. This is my first time in Tokyo."  
  
"Really? Where are you from?"  
  
"Anou ... a really small town. Sort of near Kyoto, but not really near anything."  
  
"Kyoto?" the girl put an unexpected emphasis on it.  
  
"Have you been there?" Young-eun asked.  
  
"Actually ... we just got back from Kyoto a few days ago."  
  
"Seriously? What was it like?" Young-eun asked, genuinely interested. She and Soujiro had moved southeast from Ichibou towards the port at Nagoya, so she had never actually gotten to see the city closest to where she had spent her childhood. Soujiro had not been particularly keen on going back there, either.  
  
"Well ... we got caught up in all the looting and fighting a few months ago, so it wasn't really a vacation." Young-eun detected a slight hitch in the girl's voice as she said that, and a kind of emotional flatness that was different than the way she had been speaking a moment ago. More than a slight hitch, actually. The girl was a terrible liar, or terrible at concealing information, which Young-eun considered more likely.  
  
"Wait a minute ..." Young-eun pressed, "wasn't that more than six months ago now?"  
  
"Anou ... hai," the other girl answered. "A good friend of ours got pretty badly hurt in the fighting, so we stayed there until he was ready to travel."  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that," Young-eun said. "Is he all right now?"  
  
Young-eun thought she saw a momentary flash of hesitation cross the other girl's face, as if she herself wasn't quite sure of the truth of the matter, but she got no time to pursue it. There was a sudden disturbance at the front of the store, and the two of them turned in unison to see what was happening.  
  
Suddenly, the crowd at the front of the store backed up and scattered, several of the women in the crowd screaming as they did so. A trio of men burst into the store, dressed in dark brown and wearing hoods and scarves that completely hid their faces apart from their eyes. They carried long knives in their hands. It didn't take anyone in the jeweler's long to realize what was happening.  
  
"Get down!" the first of the men shouted as he continued moving towards the counter where the petrified jeweler was still standing.  
  
Young-eun didn't exactly need the reminder. She had not come here to start a fight; it briefly entered her mind to intervene, but she didn't want to risk getting into too much trouble less than an hour after arriving in the city. She quickly slipped into a little space behind the case where she had been standing. The other girl was already there as well. That wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was what the girl she had been speaking to moments earlier held in her hand. It was unmistakably a wooden katana, and there was a fierce and stubborn look in her eyes that looked almost comically out of place on her young and innocent visage.  
  
"You aren't possibly thinking ..." Young-eun began.  
  
"Why not? There's only three of them," the older girl cut her off.  
  
"Are you CRAZY?" Young-eun hissed back.  
  
The older girl did not respond, her eyes already fixed on the trio in front of the counter. The jeweler had apparently not yet made any moves towards surrendering his cash box to the three men, though his resolve was plainly crumbling as the leader looked increasingly preparing to leap over the counter with his daggers. Strangely, Young-eun noted, neither of the leader's henchmen were clearing out any of the jewelry cases, despite the fact that there seemed to be nothing else for them to do; they were just standing around, waiting for the jeweler to hand over the cash. Her eyes narrowed. *Who robs a jewelry store and leaves all the jewels?* she wondered.  
  
She didn't have long to wonder, however, because she suddenly realized by the empty feeling in the air to her right that the mysterious girl with the wooden katana was no longer there. She cursed herself momentarily; she had planned on trying to hold the girl back behind the case and out of sight. She didn't know the girl, but she didn't want to see the first person she had talked to in Tokyo get killed in front of her. That would definitely be a bad omen for the rest of the trip.  
  
After a moment of searching, she spotted the girl. She had flitted two cases away, so she was now crouching behind the case closest to the nearest of the robbers. The store had emptied a bit by this point, though it was still fairly noisy, although in a hushed kind of way, as people attempted to slip to the exit as quickly as possible, before the robbers could get any ideas about lifting valuables off of customers as well. The area around the robbers themselves was clear of bystanders.  
  
Young-eun still had not given up on the thought of getting out of the store without a fight, and tried one last time to signal the other girl to get back into hiding, but the girl ignored her. A moment later, the other girl stood up and revealed herself, which caused Young-eun to mutter another curse. The girl had been standing less than six feet from the nearest of the bandits and the man had had his back turned. It wouldn't have been too hard, had the girl any skill with the katana whatsoever, to have crushed one or both of the man's knees from behind, and then only have had to deal with two men who would have obstacles in their way to get to her, rather than a much larger man at close range in addition to the other two.  
  
"Hold it," the girl said as she came into view of the bandits.  
  
Predictably, the three men, especially the one right by the case where the girl had been hiding, turned their attention away from the terrified jeweler, who immediately bolted out the back. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. The leader didn't seem overly surprised, and the farther bandit recovered control of himself quickly; the nearest one seemed more surprised at the fact that the girl with the wooden katana had gotten so close unnoticed than at the fact that she was there at all. In addition, the leader let the store owner go without so much as a backward glance, much less attempting to prevent the man from fleeing.  
  
"Oh, darn," the leader drawled. "There goes our sport of the day."  
  
"Boss?" the farthest of the robbers asked.  
  
"I guess we'll have to make do with some other sport," the leader drawled on. "Haitoh! Grab her, and let's get out of here before the police come."  
  
"No problem," the closest of the three responded, having recovered his composure somewhat. "You'd better put that stick down, girl," he said as he moved around the jewelry case to grab the defiant girl, who still had not said a word since she had first revealed herself, and indeed had not even moved. "You'll hurt a lot less if you do."  
  
"Maybe," the girl responded, "but you'll hurt a lot more if I don't."  
  
With a roar, the man lunged at her. The roar suddenly changed to a sharp, muffled grunt, however, as the wooden katana in the girl's hands blurred. She spun in under the thug's knife and brought what would have been the blade of her katana had it had a blade across the man's stomach, then spun back into a fierce thrust that caught the man right in the solar plexus. The man toppled over the case behind him and there was a thud as he reached the floor. Young-eun's eyes widened. The girl had some real skill.  
  
The other two were now closing on the mystery girl, the leader from the front, the other circling around to take her from the far side. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. They were showing a remarkable amount of discipline for common thugs; they were making a clear effort to stay out of each other's way so that she would have to take both of them on at once, and neither one was lunging straight for her, a mistake often made amateurs convinced that they needed to prove something. In addition, the first thug, Haitoh, whom the mysterious girl had sent sprawling, was leveraging himself back to his feet and didn't seem about to run, a common criminals generally did when up against someone who presented a challenge.  
  
The girl in the tan do-gi seemed to sense it, too. A shade of hesitancy darkened her eyes, and she retreated into a more defensive stance.  
  
"Game's up, girl," the leader snapped as he darted in. The second man was only a second behind him.  
  
The girl twisted to one side and leveled an unbalancing blow at the first thug, and succeeded in forcing the two to collide into one another. However, as good as her move was, it was not quite enough, as the leader twisted and threw his own friend tumbling straight at the girl; she reacted quickly, knocking the body aside with the flat of her katana, but that tied her up long enough for the leader to level a staggering blow at her with the hilt of his long dagger. He wasn't wasting any words; he aimed straight at the girl's face.  
  
The blow struck, but it was the leader who suddenly gave out a cry of pain. Before Young-eun had even realized what she was doing, she had leapt from her hiding place, her wakizashi springing into play. As the leader extended his arm, Young-eun had stabbed him in the right bicep. The momentum of the strike carried the man's arm forward, so he still ended up striking the distracted girl, but all the force behind the blow evaporated. What would probably have at least knocked the girl unconscious instead only threw her back a few feet, and she was able to absorb most of the impact by wrenching backwards with the blow.  
  
The leader sprang backwards, and somehow managed to keep a grip on his weapon, shifting it into his left hand. "Not bad, girl," he snarled.  
  
"Actually, it was," Young-eun replied grimly, turning and leveling a kick into the stomach of the man the leader had thrown at the girl with the wooden katana before the henchman could get up. Soujiro had taught her a lot in the several weeks since they had fled Ichibou, and she had absorbed it like a sponge, but that didn't mean she enjoyed the prospect of a three-on-one. "I was aiming for your neck." That wasn't true, but she had no intention of letting these people get the impression she was soft.  
  
The man's eyes narrowed, and his snarl deepened, but it was the girl next to her that gave a startled gasp. "No, don't!" she called. For some reason, Young-eun found that irritating, even though she didn't have any intention of actually killing anyone.  
  
"Out the back," Young-eun directed the girl, not taking her eyes away from the man in front of her. "Follow the jeweler. Go."  
  
"No killing," the other girl said, though she did move towards the back door. The thieves made no move to stop her.  
  
"That won't be necessary," Young-eun replied, nodding over the thieves' shoulder towards the door. "The police are here anyway."  
  
Young-eun breathed a sigh of relief when all three turned for a brief moment to look. Apparently they were better than normal street thugs, but not *that* good. Had they stopped to think about it, they would have realized that there had been no police whistles or shouting. There was no one there. However, the momentary delay gave Young-eun all the head start she needed, and the first girl had already moved to the door.  
  
"Move!" Young-eun barked heatedly as she saw that the older girl was not seizing the opportunity to keep moving. She grabbed the girl's right arm as she passed, practically pulling her off her feet. The incensed bellows of the three thieves followed them out the back door, and there was a clamber of footsteps behind them, but in a matter of seconds, Young-eun and the other girl were out into the crowd and were as safe as could be expected. Young-eun could see police beginning to come into view across the marketplace from two directions, converging on the jeweler's shop. She quickly sheathed her sword and concealed it as best she could in the folds of her robe and motioned for her new friend to get her weapon back on its belt instead of holding it up in the air like a sign saying "come investigate me."   
  
Together they slipped off into the crowd, Young-eun keeping her eyes down and doing her best to avoid notice. It was difficult, though, as the sight of two armed women in the marketplace was hardly an everyday occurrence. Young-eun felt like a thousand unwelcome eyes were on her, and while she had never been one to feel much emotion, she was a little flustered and embarrassed by some of the looks she was getting.  
  
If there was one person in the midst of the crowd who might have been taking more cautious or appraising notice of her, she would never have known it.  
  
***  
  
They stopped a few streets away from the harbor market. "Why did you pull me out of there?" the girl asked, finally shrugging aside Young-eun's arm. "I could've handled them."  
  
Young-eun's more characteristic shyness was reasserting itself, so she merely shrugged.  
  
Surprisingly, it seemed to have the desired effect on the older girl. She calmed down, and all but the faintest light of battle faded from her eyes. "Oh well, it's over now, and no one got hurt."  
  
Young-eun thought this was an interesting thing to say, considering the girl still had a bruise on her temple from the thief leader's aborted strike, and all three of the thieves had definitely been "hurt." She couldn't think of any way to word that thought, however, so she changed the subject. "I wasn't really going to kill that man," she noted. The girl seemed to care about that for some reason.  
  
The girl's eyes brightened. "Really? That's good to hear. I'd have hated it if you really were. You seem like such a nice girl."  
  
For some reason, that brought a smile to Young-eun's lips, even though she had found the girl's sanctimonious attitude in the middle of a melee a little irritating earlier. "I did just stab someone, you know."  
  
"Well, true, but ... oh, never mind."  
  
Young-eun grinned. "Anyway, I want to keep moving. I'm meeting someone for dinner and I think I might have to shake off a few fans before then." She made a subtle motion with her head to a few people that were trying--and failing--to watch the two of them inconspicuously.  
  
The other girl suddenly flushed, as though she hadn't noticed that what they had done would have attracted any attention. "Aah ... good idea," she murmured. She suddenly seemed anxious to get away herself.  
  
"I hope I see you again sometime," Young-eun said as she began to back away.  
  
"Yes, you too. Later."  
  
Despite the amicable parting, Young-eun was in a sour mood as she headed off towards the Seigyokukaze restaurant. She had not wanted to attract attention like that so soon after arriving, and she doubted Soujiro would be happy about it, either, even if he would hide it well. She was getting better at reading him. No one had gotten a really good look at her, or at least, she didn't think anyone had; everyone had been out of the shop by the time she had shown herself. Nonetheless, any number of people could have gotten a good enough look at her as she had fled the scene to recognize her as someone who had been at the scene, if they were to see her again, and would have seen her leaving the scene with the girl with the wooden katana. With a start, she realized she had not even asked the older girl's name. Nevertheless, she considered that the least of her worries at the moment.  
  
*Welcome to Tokyo, Young-eun,* she said to herself as she trudged down the back streets to the restaurant.  
  
*****  
  
(1) Sapphire Wind  
  
COMING SOON: Chapter 2, "Changes of Plans." Soujiro and Young-eun alter their plans a little to let peoples' memories of Young-eun die down a little. Soujiro decides to go try finding out what the police know about the heist and the two women who foiled it, and runs into everyone's favorite Tokyo cop.  
  
NOTE!! It may be a while before I can update this again. I'm just throwing this out there for feedback and suggestions. I have outlines of a few subplots I'm going to try putting characters through, and another couple of original characters I'm going to introduce, but I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this yet. In addition, college has gotten tougher as the years have gone on and I have more extracurricular commitments now as well. I will do what I can, as I truly love this stuff, but I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have over the next few months. I promise I'll take it up again in the summer, if not before. 


	2. Changes of Plans

      DISCLAIMER:  We all know that the Kenshin-gumi and all their creepy foes are the demented brainchildren of Nobuhiro Watsuki-sama.  I'm not writing this for any profit; in fact, if I weren't so obsessed with writing stuff like this, I could go out and get a job, so I'm actually losing money in the process.  :-)  I do this strictly for my own satisfaction, and hopefully, yours as well.  I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.  If not ... chikushou, aku baka!

      That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent.  Don't fault me for it.  At least I'm trying.

      Happy reading!

      ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting.  Use your head.  If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine.  Not that anyone cares but me.

      SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 62; also through "Rurouni Soujiro" by yours truly, posted in the prehistoric times when ff.net was young.

            *           *           *           *           *

      CHAPTER 2:

      CHANGES OF PLANS

      Young-eun's sullen mood had brightened somewhat by the time she reached the Seigyokukaze; it didn't appear that anyone was following her, and the restaurant was some distance from the area where the foiled robbery had taken place, so it was unlikely that too many people in the area who had actually seen her would straggle all the way to the restaurant by accident and recognize her.  She thought she caught a few people giving her odd looks as she passed, but they were not too common and it was just as likely that they were simply suspicious people and looked at all strangers that way, particularly if they perceived that she was a foreigner.  There weren't many Koreans on the Japanese mainland, after all.

      Soujiro was waiting for her just outside the door, and the last of her sourness dissipated at the sight of him.  He seemed to be in a good mood at least; of course, he always did, but for some reason it seemed to be a little more genuine than usual at the moment.  He took her arm with an air of mock formality, and she grinned as he guided her into the restaurant.

      Young-eun immediately approved of Soujiro's choice as she stepped into the foyer.  It was more than casual, but less than really formal, with somewhat soft lighting, good ventilation for getting rid of the smoke and smell of the place, and large, high-walled booths that offered a reasonable amount of privacy.  The server showed them to a private booth in the far corner of the dining room.  Young-eun slumped into one of the benches gratefully.  Soujiro was a little less unceremonious in seating himself across from her.

      "Who were you fighting?" Soujiro asked softly.

      "Wha…?" Young-eun couldn't hide her surprise for a moment, though she recovered quickly.  _Nothing evades the eyes of a samurai,_ she reminded herself.  "That's a great way to begin table talk."

      Soujiro shrugged.  "Why?" he asked.  Most of the conversations in his life had been about fighting, at the table or otherwise.  Of course, it had been mostly with ShiShiO and the Juppon Gattana, and that was all they ever talked about.

      Young-eun couldn't stifle a laugh.  "Usually you start with 'how was your day' or something."

      "But I already know that," Soujiro pointed out.  "You've been fighting.  So that would have been my second question anyway."

      Young-eun wrinkled her nose at him.  She could never tell just how much he was being funny and how much he was being serious.  He could talk so lightly about the most serious things.  "Three men tried to rob the jewelry store where I was browsing."

      Soujiro nodded.  "Did you kill anyone?"

      "Nah."  Once you got into the swing of things and started expecting outlandish questions, they became a lot easier to answer, and she had had some time to grow accustomed to this on their trip from Ichibou to Nagoya to Tokyo.

      "Were you seen?"

      "Unfortunately.  There was a crowd."

      "Why didn't you just get out of the way?"

      "I met someone there, and she started fighting them.  I jumped in to help her.  I don't think she'd have gotten out of it very well if I hadn't."

      "Did the police see you?"

      "No, but it won't be too long before they know who to look for.  There aren't too many Korean girls with swords in Tokyo, I imagine."

      "Probably not," Soujiro agreed.  His face became pensive.  A moment later, he brightened up again.  "So did you buy any jewelry?"

      Young-eun smiled.  "I really didn't get much time for shopping."

      Soujiro didn't ask anything else about the incident for the rest of their dinner, allowing Young-eun to concentrate on her kaiseki-ryori (1).  It was easily the best meal she had eaten in a long time, though the duck dish that Soujiro had made for her still had a special place in her heart.  It had not left his thoughts, however, and he brought it up again after they were finished and letting their food settle.

      "I think we may want to change our plans a little," he said.

      "Eh?"

      "Instead of going to see the Kamiya dojo tomorrow, we may want to stay in hiding for a little while."

      Young-eun grimaced.  She had been afraid of that.  "How long?  It could be weeks or months before the talk of this dies down."

      "Maa, maa, not that long," Soujiro reassured her.  "Only a day or two.  Just long enough for me to find out what the police are up to.  If nothing's really going come of this, we can go on just the way we had planned.  If there's going to be trouble, though—well, we'll still go on the way we'd planned, we'll just be a little more careful."

      Young-eun smiled.  She should never have believed that Soujiro was going to let a little police attention scare him off.  Tokyo was huge and crowded, anyway.

      "So where do we go until then?"

      "An … associate … of mine in the Shibuya area has a few spare rooms, and he's agreed to lend us some space for a few days."

      "'Associate?'" Young-eun asked with a conspiratorial grin.  "What's this, someone owe you a favor or two?"

      "Something like that," Soujiro answered with an even broader grin.

                        *           *           *

      "_This_ is the place?" Young-eun asked as they came in sight of the Kotaru residence.

      "Is something wrong?" her blue-clad traveling companion asked.

      "Hardly … I didn't know you had friends in such high places."

      "You thought I was a merchant's son when you first met me," Soujiro pointed out.

      "True, but this is a bit above a merchant's house, isn't it?"

      "Nope.  Just one that buys and sells companies … and people … instead of food and household goods."

      "I see."

      The watchman had been approaching and wordlessly threw back the gate.  "Shall we?" Soujiro asked.

      The watchman showed them up the front walk and through the main doors of the mansion.  Young-eun was even more impressed with the interior than the exterior, though Soujiro seemed to be taking everything in stride.  She had never asked him much about his past; she remembered that it was a difficult subject for him, but she wondered what his childhood had to have been like if he grew up associating with people like whoever it was that lived here.  She remembered him saying that he had had to defend himself from his own family, so it was probably with ShiShiO that he had visited places like this.

A heavyset man with a receding hairline met them a minute later, by the banister of the stairs leading to the second floor.  "Welcome back, Soujiro," the man said, though Young-eun detected a hint of irritation in the voice.

"Arigatou, Kotaru-san," Soujiro answered.  Young-eun noticed that he was wearing the same bright smile she had seen on him when she had met him outside the restaurant.  "Is everything ready?"

"Mostly," Kotaru answered.  "The staff are still touching the rooms up, but they're ready now if you're looking to retire already.  The housekeepers can finish up later."

"I think that would be a good idea," Soujiro answered.  Then, a moment later, "Oh yes!  I'm forgetting.  Young-eun-chan, this is Kotaru Takao-san; Kotaru-san, Kim Young-eun-chan."

"Nice to meet you," Young-eun said with a polite bow.

"And to you as well," Kotaru answered, returning the favor as well as his heavy stomach would allow, though making a respectable show of it nonetheless.  "I hope you find everything to your satisfaction."

"I certainly have so far," Young-eun answered honestly.  "You have a wonderful home."

"Well, thank you," Kotaru answered again, seeming genuinely pleased but giving her a very appraising look, and she wondered if she had said something amiss.  She made a note to ask Soujiro about it later, though she wasn't sure he would understand, either.  Sometimes he showed an amazing insight into people … at others, he was a doorknob.

      Kotaru left them at the foot of the stairs and a servant led them up to the second floor balcony that ran around the entrance hall.  The Blue Rooms were on the second floor, to the immediate right of and one floor above the main entrance.  A large double mahogany door on the left-hand side of the balcony formed the entrance to the suite.  The servant turned, bowed at the doors, and pushed one of them open with his near hand.  Soujiro and Young-eun walked inside.

      "Oh … my …" Young-eun breathed.

      "Don't get too comfortable," Soujiro said.  "Always remember that we may have to leave in a hurry.  Don't get too attached."  That was yet more advice that ShiShiO had given him long ago that was no less true now after his former mentor's demise than it had been before.

      "I know, I know, but … can I at least say 'wow'?"

      "OK, I think you can go that far," Soujiro assented.

      They were in the lounge of a complete and lavishly-furnished Western-style suite, fully carpeted in deep azure and with matching tapestries adorning the walls.  The master bedroom and the four-poster bed that dominated it were truly enormous, furnished in a darker shade of blue bordering on midnight, with a large log fireplace on the north side of the room.  Two large closets and an even larger bathroom with a tub that could comfortably hold four people opened off the bedroom, and a cozy study opened off the lounge.  Young-eun bounded quickly to the bed and started wriggling on it comfortably.  Soujiro guessed that she had probably never felt anything so comfortable in her life.  He himself had, but only on the occasion and ShiShiO had been careful to warn him not to get too attached to it, lest he grow soft.

      "Anyway," he said with a grin, "I think I'm going to go out and check … on that thing we mentioned earlier.  Think you can hold up here for a while?"

      "I'm not going anywhere," Young-eun sighed happily.

                        *           *           *

      The nearest police station was not far away, but Soujiro decided that the best place to find real information was probably at the precinct down by the harbor district, only a few blocks from the harbor market.  It was not a bad walk, though, and most of the crowd had thinned out by the time he reached the area, as most of the shops closed at sundown.  Soujiro stopped as soon as the crude, two-story wooden building came into sight, nearly a hundred yards away.

      There did not seem to be anything unusual going on from that distance, but Soujiro rather doubted that the stir would have been _that_ bad, anyway.  Any notice was going to be counterproductive, however, which meant that he was going to have to find a way to get much closer, possibly even inside the building, or else was going to have to find some way to get a policeman to talk to him.  He grinned ruefully.  He would have loved to have had a few contacts on the inside of the department, but most of them had been rooted up after ShiShiO's fall, as the Kawaji, the police commissioner, had been in the know about ShiShiO's covert rise to power and had been a loyal follower of Okubo Toshimichi, and thus had been told about ShiShiO's fall.  None of the rest of the force would know, of course, but they would know that corruption was being taken very seriously at the moment and thus would probably not be at their most willing to talk to outsiders.

      He darted into the darkness of the alleys and approached the police station from the rear, but it was well guarded and there was deliberately a fairly wide open space left between the station and the other buildings on the street.  Even at this distance, there didn't appear to be anything going on.  He could see a light on in the second-floor window he knew to be the chief's, however, and it was late enough that on a normal night, the chief would probably have gone home.  Soujiro's eyes narrowed.

      Retreating a short distance into the alley, he sprang lightly onto the roof of the building nearest the station and crawled quietly to the edge.  There were figures moving around in the chief's office, at least three of them.  Two of them were standing and their postures betrayed mild signs of agitation, though the third, seated, might as well have been talking about yesterday's fish catch.  One of the standing pair was at least excited enough that his voice carried across the plaza to where Soujiro lay.

      A cloud drifted across the moon, and Soujiro made up his mind before he had even realized it.  He sprang back to the far edge of the roof, took a running start, and drove himself skyward into the night sky.  The police were good, and getting better, about watching their perimeter, but it seldom occurred to anyone to watch the skies above; after all, a hot-air balloon approaching would attract attention even from the most lackadaisical observers.  Soujiro had put on a little weight since Young-eun had entered his life, but was not quite that size yet.

      The cloud cover parted only a split-second before he touched the roof of the police station; he tensed as he landed but suppressed it well enough to roll quietly.  He listened for any hint of alarm in the voices of the guards down on the ground for a few moments, but after a moment, was content that no one had seen him.  He crawled slowly back down to the edge of the roof, just above the chief's window, and listened.

      "… still have no real evidence that they worked for him," one of the three was saying.

      "Not that would hold up in court, no," agreed the man who had been talking loudly the whole time, "but it's enough for me.  It has all his markings on it."

      "And what markings are those?"

      "The choice of target, the escape route of the leader, the fact that they broke into a jewelry store without their first goal being to steal jewels."  Soujiro tensed at this.  There would almost certainly not have been two jewelry store robberies in a single day in Tokyo.

      "Still sounds weak to me."

      "Even the choice of target?  That wasn't just a random pretty girl that got attacked, you know."

      The first speaker let out a long, slow breath.  "That is suspicious, all right.  I'll send word down to central precinct to have the Kamiya Dojo watched.  Or have you already done that, Sir?"

      Soujiro was so surprised to hear the name of the Kamiya Dojo spoken that he almost missed the soft but firm sound of someone getting to their feet.  His eyes narrowed.  Something was suddenly beginning to encroach on the edges of his awareness … it was a battle aura … he rolled quickly to a tiger-crouch position …

      "Sir?!" both of the men in the room below said, growing alarmed.  The sense of a nearby and powerful battle aura flared fully into Soujiro's consciousness.  He didn't wait.  He blasted away across the roof and leapt off the edge.  He landed once atop a streetlamp, but the alarmed calls of the guards below as they finally realized that their perimeter had been breached were drowned out by the ferocious crunching sound of the wooden roof where Soujiro had been standing splintering as the third man in the room came flying through it.  Soujiro completed his leap a moment later, to the roof of a single story building on the far side of the police station from the one Soujiro had used as a springboard to reach the station.  He didn't plan on sticking around for long, but he turned for one brief moment to glance back over his shoulder at his attacker.  He was just in time to see the descending form of a tall, well-chiseled man in a policeman's uniform falling out of sight past the angle of the police station roof from Soujiro's lowered vantage.

      Having seen enough, Soujiro turned and sped off through the dark.  The clouds over the moon had partially dissipated but he had made sure to jump into the most shadowy landing spot he could find and his instinctive caution had paid off; he had gotten a good running start before the man had come through the roof to meet him.  It was unlikely he had been recognized as anything more than a thin silhouette, but even that might have been a giveaway; that had been more than just a powerful fighter that had revealed himself, it was a perceptive sleuth, too.

      Soujiro actually found himself whistling once he was safely out of range of pursuit.  He had come to simply check up on whether Young-eun had been recognized.  He had learned a lot more.

      Someone wanted Kamiya Kaoru hurt.

      The Kamiya Dojo was being watched.

      And Saitoh Hajime was still alive.

                        *           *           *

      Kaoru's shoulders were down as she approached the Kamiya Dojo.  She wasn't physically tired, but emotionally so.  Had that Korean girl not come out to help her—and been pretty good with a shortsword, for that matter—it was unlikely she would have gotten out of that little encounter unhurt.  She might not have gotten out of it at all.  How had she been so blind?  They hadn't looked like anything special, but they had clearly had some training of some kind somewhere.  Once again, she had gotten herself in over her head and had to be bailed out.  Her mind flashed back to her first encounter with Hiruma Gohei, on the day she had met Kenshin, when the innocent-seeming red-haired wanderer had been the one doing the rescuing.  She could feel that she was stronger, but nowhere near enough so.  And Kenshin was almost better … it wouldn't be long now before …

      Her thoughts were cut off and her hand darted to her mouth.  She hoped she hadn't been accidentally thinking aloud.  He was waiting for her at the entrance of the dojo.

      "Anou … konnichiwa, Kenshin," she said meekly as she approached.

      "Konnichiwa, Kaoru-dono," Kenshin responded respectfully, but for some reason there was something different in his voice.  Tension?  Wariness?  Suspicion?  "Did anything interesting happen while you were out?"

      Her eyes narrowed.  How much did he know?  "Not too much.  The catch was pretty mediocre today."

      "Ah."  The inquisitive look had not left his eyes.

      "All right, well, I'm going to go put these in the kitchen."

      "Very well."

      Kaoru slipped away, sure that Kenshin could see right through her, especially because she had trouble holding her head steady and not looking at the floor in shame as she walked away.

                        *           *           *

      Kenshin's eyes narrowed as Kaoru walked away.  He did his best to stifle the small twinge in his heart as her back retreated into the shadows of the dojo.  She was hiding something.  Did it have something to do with her training sessions in the middle of the night?  Or was there something else?  The violet gleam in his eyes was dim and dull with the lingering pain of his battles in Kyoto and his thoughts about Kaoru.  What was happening to her?  She had never hidden anything from him before.  Never anything like this, anyway.

      He glanced out of the corner of his eye towards the second-floor window of a building across the street.  Did they have no idea he was here?  Perhaps with Saitoh gone, the last memories of what he was truly capable of had vanished as well, but he didn't really believe that.  There were still too many stories about him floating around, and many had grown rather than faded with the years.

      _I wonder if people will still be telling stories about me in the next millennium?_ he mused.

      Nonetheless, the fact remained that the dojo was being watched. Kaoru had come back hours later than normal and had not wanted to tell him where she had been or why she was so late.  She was also practicing her Budo late at night when everyone else should have been asleep.  Also, since Cho's visit, he had been told nothing, and his long convalescence had prevented him from getting his own information, about what had happened to ShiShiO's forces or the other potent forces of the Japanese underworld since their battle at the Hiei shrine almost half a year ago.

      Clouds began to drift across the moon, and his shoulders sagged.  Leaning on his sakaba like a cane, he turned and walked back into the shadows.

            *           *           *           *           *

      (1) A traditional, and rather pricey, multi-part Japanese dish.

      COMING SOON: "Who's Watching Who?"  Kenshin thought he had left the intrigues of the Japanese underworld and politics behind after he was finished in Kyoto.  Soujiro thought the same after he was finished in Ichibou.  Both were wrong.

Neither are happy about it.  

Snoopage ensues.


End file.
